In the midst of hate

"In the midst of hate, I found there was within me an invincible love." This quote has been running through my mind for a while now. I spent so long being angry, upset and feeling like the entire world was against me. I couldn't figure out why nothing seemed to go right for me. I have learned a lot the last two or so years in recovery, about myself, about how to cope, about how changing your mind set can change your entire life. I learned that being angry about everything gets you no where, but angry and in the same place you started. Even though I am still learning new coping skills, I have gained many coping skills. It still isn't always easy to use them, but it is getting easier. Changing your mind set doesn't just happen over night. Some days will be a lot easier than others. You have to want it, you have to wake up and choose it even when you don't want to choose it. That can be the hardest part. For example, showering everyday and staying on a routine is really hard for me. Its also very important for me, my household and my life. Even though some days, I would prefer to just lay in bed and not to anything at all. I need to get up, get dressed and try anyways. Doing this has really helped how I have been feeling. Being able to have a part time job has also helped me a lot, it gives me the chance to need to get presentable and dressed nicely and work with people. I also have nurse appointments every Friday, that has helped me keep track of my eating disorder and check in with myself when Ana gets very loud. Having my partner come with me helps our household a lot because then I cannot hide things about my eating disorder. I have to out my eating disorder and if I happen to not my partner is able to do that for me. I am grateful I have the support that I do have. I am not sure where I would be without them.
Reconnecting with myself has been very important in the last couple of years. I spent a very long time lying to myself. I shouldn't say I have been lying to myself, more my eating disorder has been lying to me. Changing, twisting and controlling what I see in the mirror, what I deserve, what I eat, how I do things, or excuse things. Even when I didn't want to I would tell myself I deserved food, I deserved life and I deserved to move forward with my life. Doing this has helped me feel a lot better about myself. I still have many moments during everyday where I don't feel very good about myself, or I wish that I didn't have this eating disorder. That I didn't have to battle every single with my own mind. Its tiring, overwhelming and can often make me feel like I just am too much to handle. Those days are allowed to happen, I am only human after all. I just cannot let those days overcome me. I cannot unpack and live in those days. I need to accept them and then move forward with a new day.
It's funny how as each day passes it doesn't seem that anything is different, yet when we look back over a period of time, it seems so much has changed.
I am a very strong believer in "everything happens for a reason." I believe life has this way of putting us through really tough situations so that we can be truly grateful for the good that comes our way. In my life I often times felt alone, unloved and like everyone would be better off without me. Since accepting my eating disorder, and starting recovery I have learned that I am very loved, I am supported and I am never alone. I hated the lifestyle I had made for myself. I was genuinely not happy, overwhelmed and completely worthless. In this midst of all of that I found I did not have to be what the world told me I needed to be. I could be who I wanted to be in my heart. I had many moments where I realized that I had pushed away people and things I loved because I felt I did not deserve them. Once I opened my mind to the thought that, maybe everyone else isn't the problem. Maybe I myself needed to look into the mirror and start making some changes. Change who I surrounded myself with, change my living situation and many other things about myself. For a long time I wanted to kill myself, recently I heard a quote about if you want to kill yourself you don't have to stop living and it really spoke to me. If you don't like yourself you can kill the parts you don't like. For example, everyone used to call me Jenn, when I moved to a new town I felt I needed a new start, I did not want to pretend I was somebody I was not. So when I introduced myself I would do it as Jennifer and not as Jenn. It was something so small and so simple, but it honestly help me a lot. I have made many steps in the last couple of years to better my life. It feels really good to not be living in the word of hate anymore. I am grateful for the experiences I have gone through, because they made me the person I am today.

My past does not define me

I recently made a video for an event which involved working with youth and researching and learning about mental illness. I made two videos. One was about eating disorders and one was about self harm. As I did research I learned there are many forms of self harm. Many forms I personally have done and dealt with. One that really stood out to me was trouble with the law, in my past I dealt with trouble with the law, often actually.  I never realized how so many of my actions were self harm. It was me hurting myself, punishing myself for not living up to the expectations I had set out for myself. This first time I got into trouble with the law I was 16 years old, I was . I was arrested early one morning before school. After the incident I had to report to a probation officer, while I waited for the court date to arrive. I remember so clearly the panic I felt realizing what I had done. It was while I was getting my finger prints done, the man looked at me and he said, "young lady what are you doing here, you don't look like you should be here at all". My stomach sank and I felt sick, scared and like I may have just ruined my entire life. He was right, I didn't belong there. What I did warranted me to be arrested and I was in fact guilty of the charges that were laid against me. That is not the reason I say I don't belong there. I say it because I know in my heart it is wrong to put your hands on someone else in anger, or any other form unwanted. I reported to my probation every time, I did the counselling and the assessments that were listed in my probation rules. Just shortly before I was about to finish my length of probation, there was another incident. This time, it was not involving my family. This time I was charged with twice, and another length of probation was added. At the time of this incident I was 17 years old. This made it so I was unable to see both my children unattended. I was removed from school and the school district as well. I could feel my life crumbling beneath my feet. Looking back now I can see that all of these actions were self harm, at that point in my life I truly did not care if this all impacted my future, because I honestly couldn't see a future for myself. I did not feel after all that I had done I deserved one. I did not feel worth the ground I walked on, I did not feel deserving of the food I did allow myself to eat, I did not like the person who looked back at me when I looked into the mirror. I hated everything that I was and everything that I was becoming. I hated how I treated people and I told myself that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't change. I realize now that was my self harm brain talking.
 At the age of 18 or 19 I was arrested again. This time I was given more probation, a curfew and a no drinking order. I knew that after this incident, I needed to do something I had never done to get results in my life I had never gotten. My mom, step dad, brother and daughter had moved to Nanaimo. Since I could not finish my schooling in the town I was living in I decided to start looking at places for just myself in Nanaimo, to be closer to my daughter. I spoke with my probation officer about why I felt moving to Nanaimo was going to benefit my life. I wanted to work hard to be there for my daughter again and be the parents I knew I could be. In July 2013 I moved into a bachelor apartment downtown Nanaimo. I started going over to my moms house every day and spending time with my daughter more and more, then went back to high school.  Having a curfew really sucked for me at this time, as I lived across town and with school I could only see my daughter for short periods. After a while I asked my probation officer if I could have the curfew address put to mine and my moms as well, so that I could either be home or at my moms with my daughter when I needed to be in for curfew. As I was doing really well, and I had not had any breaches, they granted me that. I worked my butt off in school and graduated with honors. My curfew was up, and I still had a little bit of time left to go on my probation. I decided to go spend a weekend in the town I had moved from to visit some friends. I was still not supposed to drink alcohol. I choose to go out to the bar that night and play a game of pool. That is all it was supposed to be. Then pool turned into drinking and dancing. I ended up getting separated from my friends and getting jumped on my way back to the bar. Which in turn lead someone to call the police and I got arrested for breach of probation because I was not to be drinking or in an establishment where the main intent is to sell liquor. The next morning, I walked across town and waited until a friend was able to pick me up, help me get my stuff and bring me back to Nanaimo. I felt ashamed, embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I had been doing so well, I was almost done and I just wanted it to be over with. As I waited for the court date my lawyer told me they wanted to try and get me in for at least 60 days, I was petrified. He was able to defend that this was my only breach of probation and that they felt I needed to move on with my life and try to get past being in trouble with the law. The end result I was to pay a fine. Since that probation has ended, and the fine has been paid. I have not been arrested or charged with anything else. As I sit here and write this, I have a part time job, I have my daughter living with me full time. I live with my partner who I am able to work with through conflict. I have gotten my learners driving license and life is moving forward. I've been feeling really down and out lately and having a hard time being grateful. I realized that maybe I needed to rehash some of my past to realize that life has gotten better, hard work does pay off, and I can in fact change for the better. I have learned about self care, which is not something I used to find very important. Routine and being able to voice myself without anger is also important. Sometimes for me this means writing it down on paper, or waiting until I do not feel so much anger before speaking to someone. I am still learning, I am no where near perfect. In fact I never will be, and that is okay because I do not want perfection. I just want to work hard every day to be better than I was yesterday. If you are still reading this I hope that you realize that the struggles you have had, are going through or may go through do not define you, they are not your whole life, and they will get better. You do not have to be the person you do not want to be. Change is possible.

The Truth

I have been feeling at a loss lately. I have put so much hard work into recovery, yet I have also slipped so many times that I am starting to wonder if it is even worth it anymore. I built a system that worked for me, I had my support community and I was going down the road of bettering my life. I feel like I may have bitten off more than I can chew... (I know quite the expression) I find I spend so much time worrying about everyone around me that I often forget to worry about myself. I will be so focused on the fact I want to be a good mother and make good meals, but then I don't sit down and eat them. I just prepare them for my daughter. I have found that I don't enjoy a lot of the things I used to enjoy. I am having a hard time enjoying a relaxing bath. It honestly has been taking every bit of energy I have to even be able to shower. I went through a really rough patch recently where I wouldn't shower for 3-4 days because I didn't feel like I deserved it. I started trying to make myself shower every morning and get into a routine. It helped for a good five days and now I am really struggling to even get out of bed in the morning. I am waking up frustrated and angry. It takes EVERYTHING inside of me to clean my house. I have lost all motivation to cook what so ever. I don't feel like I deserve to do my nails because when I spend money on that my mind is telling me that it is taking away from food. I bought myself new shoes last week, and had to convince my own self that it was okay because I really did need them. I've come to loose some weight recently and now I've had to buy pants from the kids section. That was an extremely hard pill to swallow. I stopped posting progress photos and keeping track of my meals. I have honestly let go of myself. I am scared and I feel hopeless. This isn't what I want. I have sat down and made plans for a day, which included food and self care and then the next day comes to follow it and I'm fighting my mind once again. I've lost interest in some of my favorite shows and movies. I am finding that I am irritated more than I am not. I feel like I am fighting a battle that I cannot win... and that quite frankly is the scariest thought. IM JUST SO FUCKING TIRED.